This photocopy of a license plate which is the basis of a lawsuit against Indiana's Bureau of Motor Vehicles filed by Greenfield police corporal Rodney G. Vawter. / The Indianapolis Star

by Mary Beth Schneider, The Indianapolis Star

by Mary Beth Schneider, The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana motorists who want a vanity plate will have to put their plans on idle until a lawsuit over an "0INK" plate is settled.

State Bureau of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Scott Waddell said late Friday that the personalized license plate program will be temporarily suspended, pending the outcome of the legal case.

Those who already have personalized plates can keep them, and even renew them. But anyone else who fancies a plate that tells the world "IMGR8" or "UR2CLOS" will just have to "W8."

Waddell, in a statement, blamed the suspension of the plate program on the legal challenge, saying it is necessary "in order to protect Hoosier taxpayers from the considerable expense that these types of lawsuits bring."

It's the latest in a series of legal complications for the BMV. Earlier this month, it had to agree to repay Hoosiers after overcharging for driver's licenses. Last month, after an extended legal battle, it agreed to restore the specialty plate for the Indiana Youth Group, which supports gay, bisexual, transgender and sexually questioning youth.

The lawsuit that prompted the BMV to park the vanity plate program was filed in Marion County Superior Court in May by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of a Greenfield policeman, Rodney Vawter.

For three years, Vawter had a license plate that read "0INK" - with a zero in place of the O - but when he tried to renew it in March, it was rejected.

"Corporal Vawter selected the phrase 'oink' for his license plate because, as a police officer who has been called 'pig' by arrestees, he thought it was both humorous and also a label that he wears with some degree of pride," the lawsuit states.

The BMV this year told Vawter the plate was inappropriate, and cited a state statute that allows the BMV to refuse to issue a plate that officials believe carries "a connotation offensive to good taste and decency" or "would be misleading."

Ken Falk, legal director for the ACLU, said that statute should be deemed an unconstitutionally vague infringement on free speech. And he called Friday's suspension of the BMV program "curious."

"I don't understand that," Falk said. "This (suspension) in no way affects the lawsuit, so I'm not sure what the BMV is saving in expenses. The lawsuit that we have challenges not the PLP program; it challenges the standards by which plates are assessed and the fact that apparently the BMV is using standards" which are not spelled out in law or code.

Waddell, in his statement, said the personalized plate program is one of the BMV's oldest.

"Indiana is not the first state to see its PLP statutes challenged, as this has become a widespread topic of debate across the nation," he said.